First Drive

The all-new 2014 Ford Fusion has been on sale for a couple of months now, while the 2014 Ford Ranger is basically a carryover model, having been redesigned just a couple of years ago. But Ford decided to give us a taster of these two important models at the Dubai Autodrome recently, to highlight their best attributes. It was a generic event, like any other, but they then threw us a curveball in the form of the Toyota Camry and the Toyota Hilux, both there for us to compare with the Fords.

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The last time we drove a Toyota FJ Cruiser, it was 2007 and the recession hadn’t hit yet. Fast-forward to 2014, and that recession has become a footnote in history, but the FJ Cruiser is still around, not looking any different than when it first started out. Now, depending on which rumours you believe, the FJ is on its last legs, and the UAE dealer has created some special models to keep interest alive. One of those models is the FJ Street, a pre-pimped offroader that’s intentionally more about style than about offroading.

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As I was flying back from the Jaguar F-Type Coupe media drive in Spain, I sat next to a random passenger who happened to be an Australian mining engineer. He told me an equally random story. He asked me why the width of a Space Shuttle’s high-tech booster rockets are what they are. Apparently it’s because the rockets had to be transported via train tunnels, thereby limiting them to that size. What decided the width of the train tunnels? The width of the train tracks. What decided the width of the train tracks? The makers of the train wheels and axles.

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Clearly, Infiniti is still in the start-up phase. Despite having started right after Lexus a quarter of a century ago, they’re still doing things a start-up would, such as continually changing the plan to keep going. They started off back then with nameplates like the Q45 and the J35, none of which survived beyond the early 2000s. Their flagship switched from a full-size sedan to a Nissan-based full-size SUV, the QX56. And most recently, they decided to dump all their old nameplates that were just beginning to gain traction, such as the G37 and the FX50, in favour of a Q-based naming convention that no one has quite figured out yet.

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Mazda’s been on a roll for the past year, launching all-new models that use an all-new design language that basically adds luxury-car styling cues that go well with their sporty handling. Their latest introduction is the redesigned Mazda 3, a car we expected to hit above its weight. And from what we could tell from our briefer-than-brief encounter, it didn’t disappoint.

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Depending on your views, Porsche either keeps launching a lot of new models, or they rarely launch new models. That’s based on whether you think every single variant of the 911 debuting like clockwork every few months is a new model, or whether you consider an entirely new vehicle line to be a new model. We are in the latter camp, and we were interested to see what Porsche had cooked up for the compact crossover segment, with the all-new Macan.

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The first-generation Genesis sedan was supposed to be Hyundai’s game-changer. A valiant effort at building a contemporary luxury sedan with a sporting streak, it was a hit everywhere else except the Middle East. Now Hyundai has gone in a slightly different direction with the Genesis, not just improving it for the 2015 model year, but also choosing a more controversial approach to the styling.

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Well? What do you think of its looks? Before you answer that and run back to your boring old econoboxes, be advised that we had the same opinion as you before. The 2014 Jeep Cherokee’s front-end smacks you in the face like a torpedo, but we had slightly warmed up to it when the Trailhawk offroad-ready version was revealed. It looks kind of cool in an unconventional concept moon-buggy sort of way, turning heads wherever it pops up, which is probably the effect Jeep was going for, rather than just make a mini-Grand Cherokee. But beyond the styling lies a car that’s better than many of its direct competitors.

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Italian carmaker Maserati is eager to take a bigger share of the luxury car market, especially with the addition of several new models in just the last two years. Recently Maserati held a media drive event in Dubai to highlight their latest addition, the midsize Ghibli sedan. But they also brought along some of their other models as well, so we got our first look at the Maserati GranCabrio MC and the Quattroporte GTS as well.

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Mercedes-Benz built its reputation on luxury cars over the course of a century. Then there was that one time in the early 70s when they dabbled with a 4×4 for a military contract. That was the G-Wagen, which quickly went civilian later, but it wasn’t until the 90s that it evolved into the form it is today. Mercedes-Benz got the hint that the world is ready for a mainstream three-pointed-star SUV, and came up with the M-Class by the late 90s. And the rest, as they say, is history. Today, aside from the patriarch G-Class, the midsize M-Class and the compact GLK-Class,

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